trying to make sense of my life – and lose some weight

Hello World

by Cherie Renae on September 26, 2012

First, the good news:

1. My husband tells me I still turn men’s heads. Just today, someone told him I was a ‘looker’. (He didn’t know B was my husband at the time.)
2. I can walk two miles to the library and back without keeling over.
3. I don’t have any ‘conditions’. No diabetes, high blood pressure, etc.
4. I eat healthy. Ridiculously healthy. Moderation in all things, except portion size. (Oops. That belongs in the bad news category.)
5. I’m married to a much younger man who thinks I’m the prettiest, brightest and funniest girl ever.
6. I live in Portland. Woo-hoo!
7. We just moved to Portland two months ago. Our little place overlooks a pond and a creek. As I sit at my desk and write, I watch a duck cavort in the pond flora, giving herself a lace-like cape of duckweed. Super duck! And Super Me, for (finally) getting back to my beloved hometown.

The bad news:

September 6, 2012 – Front

Side

Back

1. I’ve gained weight over the past year. A lot of weight. I took photos of myself today, to see the honest, awful truth.
2. I’m tired all the time. I used to be a hummingbird, always busy, always flitting about. But last November, I hit burnout, and I still haven’t completely recovered.
3. My joints hurt. Especially my knees. And my back. My right hip. My wrists and hands. OK, my joints hurt.
4. I’m getting forgetful. Don’t expect me to remember anything you’ve told me. Send me an email or a text. If it’s not in writing, eight minutes later, it ceases to exist.
5. I’m exhibiting classic symptoms of anxiety. I’m cranky, easily overwrought, quick to take offense, and reclusive. I’m overeating. Duh. You don’t get these hips from a lean diet.
6. The tenth anniversary of my prior husband’s suicide in one week away. Truth is, I don’t think I’m dealing very well with this milestone.
7. I turn fifty-five in one month.

Except for the husband’s suicide thing, I don’t think I’m that much different from most middle-age women. We’ve worked hard all our lives, we’re getting tired and forgetful, and our bodies are a little worse for the wear. But I’m not really known for accepting ‘the way things are’. I’m the person who’s still working on a consistent mathematical universe that includes division by zero. Hey, don’t laugh. We have square roots of imaginary numbers. Surely we can figure out a way to divide by zero.

So, here’s the deal. It’s time to take care of myself. I’m going to eat less, find some type of exercise that doesn’t make me hurt more than when I started, get serious about getting spiritual, and see if I can’t regain some of my old spark and energy. What I’m not going to do is weigh myself. I’ll let photographs tell the story. This isn’t a numbers game, it’s a whole new thing. Game on!